Bond University
Research Repository
Personality and employee selection
Fisher, Cynthia D; Boyle, Gregory J.
Published in:
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources
DOI:
10.1177/103841119703500204
Published: 01/07/1997
Document Version:
Peer reviewed version
Link to publication in Bond University research repository.
Recommended citation(APA):
Fisher, C. D., & Boyle, G. J. (1997). Personality and employee selection: Credibility regained. Asia Pacific
Journal of Human Resources, 35(2), 26-40. https://doi.org/10.1177/103841119703500204
General rights
Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners
and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.
For more information, or if you believe that this document breaches copyright, please contact the Bond University research repository
coordinator.
Download date: 10 Sep 2019
Personality and Employee Selection:
Credibility Regained
Cynthia D. Fisher
School of Business
Bond University
Gold Coast QLD
Australia
07
5595 2215
fax 07 5595 1160
Gregory J. Boyle
Department of Psychology
Bond University
Gold Coast QLD
Australia
07
55952525
fax 07 55952545
1
Personality and Employee Selection:
Credibility Regained
Conceptual and methodological advances on both the predictor and criterion side and
several influential meta-analytic reviews have contributed to a resurgence of credibility for
personality as a predictor in employee selection. This paper reviews the prior problems with
personality as a predictor, summarises research findings on the effectiveness of personality in
selection, and lays out the circumstances under which personality measures are most likely to be
useful. The most consistent findings are that personality measures such as integrity and
conscientiousness predict contextual and motivational aspects of performance reasonably well.
Suggestions for future research on personality in selection are made, and human resource
management implications of personality-based selection are discussed.
2
Personality testing for employee selection has had a chequered history. Over the years,
considerable research attempting to validate personality instruments for selection has been
conducted. An early review by Guion and Gottier (1965) pointed out that predictive validities
from personality questionnaires appeared to be weak and inconsistent. Academics took this
message to heart and began to discourage the use of personality instruments for hiring purposes.
Consequently, research on personality and job performance virtually went into hibernation for 20
years. Human resource practitioners, however, continued to believe that personality was an
important predictor (Dunn, Mount, Barrick, & Ones, 1995).
Criticisms of personality testing in selection have included: poor criterion related validity,
potential faking by applicants, unfairness, limited face validity, and invasion of privacy (cf.
Hogan, 1991). Fairness may be breached because applicants may incriminate themselves without
being aware of what they are doing (the purpose and coding of items is not obvious), there is
usually no feedback of test scores and no appeal process, and little explanation for the choice and
use of the particular instrument is given to applicants (Harland, Rauzl, & Biasotto, 1995). Face
validity and privacy suffer when questionnaire items cover sexual fantasies and other personal
beliefs and behaviour in the non-work domain.
Resurgence of Interest in Personality Testing for Selection
Recently there has been a major resurgence in academic interest in personality testing for
employee selection. A number of factors have contributed to this: literature reviews using metaanalytic techniques, the use of typologies of personality traits to organise past validation studies,
more sophisticated conceptualisations of the performance criteria to be predicted, the development
of personality measures more closely focused on job demands, and reassuring research on faking
by applicants. Each of these will be discussed below, while specification of exactly which
personality variables appear to predict which aspects of job performance will be deferred until a
later section of the paper.
3
Meta analytic reviews by BarTick and Mount (1991, updated in Mount and Barrick, 1995)
and Tett, Jackson, and Rothstein (1991) suggested that some personality variables were
significant predictors of some aspects of performance, with mean validity coefficients corrected
for unreliability as high as .45 across occupational groups. Central to these reviews was the
adoption of the "Big Five" personality typology as a means of organising previous studies which
used a large variety of specific trait measures. One of the more interesting findings of Tett et al.
was that validity coefficients were much stronger in studies in which personality predictors were
choscn on the basis of theory and job analysis (r = .38) than in those in which they were not (r =
.12). Schneider and Hough (1995, p. 87) likewise criticised blindly empirical research in which
"Predictors are hurled against criteria in the hope that some will stick." A more theory-based
approach to understanding both personality and job performance constructs seems needed to
clearly forecast when, why, and how personality variables may be expected to predict job
behaviour. Substantial progress on such a framework has been made during the past decade.
Campbell (1990) has sounded a call for a "theory of performance" to improve the
understanding and prediction of job performance (see Cooksey and Gates, 1995, for a competing
model). Such a theory would specify the distinct components of job performance and the likely
determinants of each component. This framework would be useful in generating hypotheses
about which aspects of performance are best predicted by personality or other types of predictors.
Campbell's initial suggestion for a typology of job performance included seven components: job
specific task proficiency (performance on core technical aspects of the job), nonjob specific task
proficiency (tasks most incumbents have to do, regardless of specific occupation), written and
oral communication, maintaining personal discipline, facilitating peer and team performance,
supervision, and management/administration. Several of the meta-analyses of personality test
validity have also found it necessary to consider multiple aspects of job performance, not just
global measures of overall performance.
While the exact number of components needed to cover the domain of performance in the
majority of jobs is not yet agreed, recent research suggests that at least two very distinct aspects
4
of perfonnance must be considered: task perfonnance, and contextual performance (Motowidlo
& Van Scotter, 1994). Contextual perfOlmance includes Campbell's personal discipline
dimension, Barrick and Mount's personnel data criterion, and activities elsewhere called law
abiding, organisational citizenship, extra-role, or prosocial organisational behaviour. Specific
behaviours include following rules, attending work reliably, volunteering for extra duties, being
cooperative, and supporting the organisation in a variety of discretionary ways. Others have
focused on the negative side of contextual performance: irresponsible, counter-productive, or
"deviant" behaviours such as quitting, being absent, stealing, and being the target of disciplinary
actions.
Motowidlo and Van Scotter found that supervisors are capable of distinguishing between
task and contextual performance when making ratings, and that both aspects contribute
independently to ratings of overall perfonnance. Research quite clearly shows that personality
predicts contextual perfonnance better than task perfonnance. Earlier studies that focused only
on overall performance or objective measures of job proficiency quite understandably produced
low average validities for personality measures.
Advances in personality testing have also helped improve the credibility and predictive
ability of tests in the employment setting. Earlier instruments such as the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (MMPI) were designed to identify diagnosable mental disorders, and were
of limited use in normal populations of job applicants (see critique by Helmes & Reddon, 1993).
The development of instruments (such as the California Psychological Inventory -CPI) suited to
assessing general (non-clinical) populations was a step forward. (See McAllister 1986 for advice
on using the CPI in selection.) Factor analytically based instruments such as the Sixteen
Personality Factor Questionnaire (l6PF) have been developed to assess overall source traits (see
Cattell, Cattell, and Cattell, 1994). The NEO Personality Inventory has been specifically
designed to assess the Big Five personality dimensions, with six subfactors in each Big Five
dimension (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Hogan set out to produce a six-factor instrument that
assessed the ability of normal adults to adapt and get along in society (see critique by Boyle,
5
1992). The Hogan Personality Inventory's six dimensions (intellectance, adjustment, prudence,
ambition, sociability, likeability) are comprised of "homogeneous item composites (HICs)"internally consistent clusters of items that measure one of 45 more precise characteristics such as
self-esteem, cooperativeness, and autonomy. A number of studies have used these HICs to
construct customised inventories aimed at the demands of particular jobs. Examples include the
Sales Potential Inventory (Hogan, Hogan, & Gregory, 1992), the Claims Examiner Inventory
(Arneson, Millikin-Davies, & Hogan, 1993), and the Service Orientation Index (Hogan, Hogan,
& Busch, 1984). Additional advances have been made in the development and validation of job-
relevant personality-like tests of honesty, integrity, and employee reliability (Ones, Viswesvaran,
& Schmidt, 1993).
In Australia at the present time, the 16PF, CPI, and the Occupational Personality
Questionnaire (OPQ, Saville & Holdsworth, 1990-1994) seem to be the most commonly used
personality inventories in the selection context. Both the 16PF and the CPI have a longestablished history of use in this regard, whereas the OPQ is a more recently constructed
instrument which incorporates some of the features of the 16PF (see review by Haladyna 1992).
A further perceived impediment to the use of personality instruments was the concern
about fakability, though simple motivational distortion in responses can be detected with the "lie"
or social desirability scales built into many inventories. Research has shown that respondents
can raise their scores when instructed to "fake good," though they can "fake bad" even better.
However, applicants generally do not seem to distort their responses very much, and validity is
not affected. Only random responding destroys validity (Hough, Eaton, Dunnette, Kamp, &
McCloy, 1990). Some scholars have suggested that choosing to distort and present oneself
positively can be a useful predictor of job success. Applicants who are socially sensitive enough
to present themselves favourably may be better at getting along in the social world, and may
make better employees (Schmit, Ryan, Stierwalt, & Powell, 1995; Seisidos, 1993). However,
there is not yet sufficient evidence to either support or refute this proposition. For example,
6
Hough et al. did not find evidence that favourable self-presentation was related to job
perfonnance in their military sample.
Dimensionality of Personality in the Selection Context
A very major issue for many researchers is how the personality domain should be
conceptualised and measured. There are several typologies of personality traits at a high level of
generality: The Big Five advocated by Costa and McCrae (1988), Goldberg (1990), Mount and
Barrick (1995), and others (see critique by Block, 1995); the 16 source trait factors and the six
second-order factors delineated by Cattell (see Krug & Johns, 1986); the three typological factors
of Eysenck (1991); the six factors used by Hogan; and the nine categories Hough (1992) found
necessary to organise previous research on the validity of specific traits for predicting job
perfonnance. Table I lists these typologies. A detailed exploration of the empirical evidence for
each is beyond the scope of this paper (cf. Boyle, 1989). Suffice it to say that some researchers
feel that five traits is too few for predicting job performance, and that the so-called Big Five both
exclude relevant individual difference constructs (eg. Boyle, Stankov, & Cattell, 1995) and
combine into single dimensions other attributes which are distinctly and differently related to job
behaviour criteria (Hough, 1992; Schmit & Ryan, 1993).
****Insert Table I About Here****
Regardless of which typology is adopted as an overarching framework, a further issue
arises in whether for prediction purposes, traits should be assessed at the highest and broadest
level, or if more specific traits should be measured and used as separate predictors. It seems
doubtful that measures at the macro level of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism would
provide the fine-grained infonnation needed to predict job success in specific occupations, even
though Eysenck's typology is well supported in the personality literature. Mershon and Gorsuch
(1988) have shown empirically that more and more specific traits provide better prediction than
fewer general factors. They compared the use of all 16 scales of the 16PF to the use of summary
7
measures of the 16PF's higher-order factors, and found that the prediction of criteria such as
salary, tenure, performance, and occupation membership was nearly always better when the 16
individual traits were used. Measurement and validation at the level of specific traits is also
expected to shed more light on a theory of the causes of distinct aspects of performance
(Schneider, Hough, & Dunnette, 1996).
One the other hand, Ones and Viswesvaran (1996) make a convincing argument for the
reliability and predictive validity of broad trait constructs, such as the Big Five, over the narrower
traits that comprise each Big Five construct. They argue both logically and empirically that most
job performance criteria are broad and multi-dimensional, necessitating an equally broad predictor
construct. In a reply to this paper, Hogan and Roberts (1996) point out that the broadness or
specificity of the predictor needs to match the broadness or specificity of the performance
criterion, meaning that there is a time and place for both broad and specific personality trait
measures.
What Works - Specific Findings on Personality-Performance Relationships
If job performance is viewed as a multiplicative function of ability (can do) and
motivation (want to do), then both ability measures and stable dispositional factors indicative of
motivation should be useful predictors of job success. The case for ability measures has already
been made convincingly (Hunter, 1986). Some personality attributes, such as achievement
orientation and conscientiousness, are probably good indicators of motivation and should be
useful in predicting job success. In fact, there is now an overwhelming body of evidence
showing that measures of integrity, reliability, prudence, dependability, conscientiousness, and
achievement orientation are significantly related to contextual performance on many jobs (cf.
Banick & Mount, 1991; Mount and Barrick, 1995; Murphy, 1993; Ones et al. 1993; Sackett,
Burris, & Callahan, 1989). In some cases, these types of personality constructs also
significantly predict task performance/proficiency, but usually not as strongly as they do
contextual performance (McHenry, Hough, Toquam, Hanson, & Ashworth, 1990; Motowidlo
8
& Van Scotter, 1994). It makes sense that motivation should influence behaviour most subject to
volitional control by individuals, while motivation/personality measures alone will be less able to
predict task performance when ability is also required.
There have been several influential meta-analytic reviews of personality-perfonnance
relationships over the past few years. The reviewers agree that some personality measures can
contribute to the prediction of some aspects of job perfolmance. However, the detailed
conclusions reached by the various reviewers do not always agree, and it would be premature to
make blanket recommendations about validity generalisation (with the probable exception of
integrity).
Barrick and Mount's (1991) review based on the Big Five has received the most
attention. These authors reported that across all job categories studied, conscientiousness was
the only characteristic which was related to all three categories of performance criteria (job
proficiency, training proficiency, personnel data) across all job categories studied (estimated true
A
correlation (p) = .22). Training proficiency was predicted by intellectance/openness to
experience
(p = .25), extraversion (p = .26), and conscientiousness (p =.23).
Both sales and
managerial success were significantly predicted by extraversion. However, the magnitudes of
the uncorrected mean correlations were quite modest, .15 or below, accounting for very limited
proportions of the variance in the criterion. A 1995 update of this meta-analysis found that
conscientiousness predicted "will do" performance criteria like reliability, effort, and quality with
an estimated true validity of .45, and predicted "can-do" ability-based criteria on average .22
(Mount and Barrick, 1995).
Tett et al. (1991) used somewhat different criteria and procedures in their meta-analysis,
and produced generally higher validity estimates than the original Barrick and Mount work. They
found that agreeableness, openness to experience, and neuroticism (negatively) were most
strongly related to job performance. The mean correlation for conscientiousness was positive,
but this construct was not as useful in their study as it was in Barrick and Mount's analysis.
9
Hough's (1992) meta-analysis concluded that different personality traits predict different
types of criteria. For instance, she found that locus of control and achievement predicted training
success and overall pelformance; dependability, achievement, and adjustment predicted law
abiding versus irresponsible behaviour; potency and achievement predicted managerial
proficiency; and affiliation, potency, achievement, adjustment, and locus of control predicted
sales effectiveness. Interestingly, creativity was negatively predicted by affiliation and
agreeableness, suggesting that more isn't always better, even on stereotypically "good"
dimensions.
While a number of types of tests have recently shown promising validity in predicting
aspects of job performance, integrity tests provide the most striking and surprising success story.
Two types of integrity tests are available: those that are overt, focusing on attitudes toward theft
and past dishonest behaviour; and those that are more personality-oriented, assessing general
conscientiousness, impulse control, rule following, dependability, and the like. Personality
based integrity measures seem to owe their effectiveness to combining conscientiousness,
agreeableness, achievement, dependability, and emotional stability into a composite that outpredicts any of its individual components (Collins & Schmidt, 1993; Murphy & Lee, 1994;
Ones, Schmidt, & Viswesvaran, 1994). A meta-analysis by Ones et a!. (1993) provides strong
evidence for the cross-situation and cross-occupational validity of these instruments for
predicting both job performance and counter-productive behaviours. Integrity tests predict not
just employee theft, but also a wide range of counter-productive behaviours. Mean corrected
validity coefficients of up to .41 were found. Organisational level time series studies of integrity
tests have also shown interesting results, with shrinkage and terminations for cause decreasing
substantially following the adoption of integrity tests in selection (see Sackett et a!., 1989, for a
review).
These robust results led Ones to speculate that integrity may be the personality equivalent
to general mental ability in the cognitive domain: valid for virtually all jobs and often superior to
more specific trait measures (see also Mount and Barrick, 1995 for a discussion of the
10
"functional personality" at work). Given these findings, employers could probably adopt one of
the more reputable integrity tests on the basis of validity generalisation, and forgo doing their
own validation study. However, with low base-rate behaviours like employee theft and seriously
non-compliant behaviour, the problem of false positives (erroneously rejecting employees who
would not have stolen or been non-compliant) will remain severe (Murphy, 1993).
Some studies have focused on identifying the personality traits which are most useful in
predicting success in specific occupational fields. A meta-analysis by McDaniel and Frei (1994)
suggested that measures of customer service orientation were significantly related to performance
in service jobs, with a mean corrected correlation of .50. Like integrity, customer service
measures also seem to tap conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness (Hough &
Schneider, 1996).
In the managerial realm, success has been found to be significantly correlated with
potency, adjustment, achievement, extraversion, and need for advancement (Barrick & Mount,
1991; Bray & Howard, 1983 Hough, 1992). Bentz (1985) reported on decades of research on
personality and managerial performance at Sears, a major U.S. retailer. In summarising the
results of work on manufacturing managers, he described the successful "Competitive
Leadership Syndrome" as follows (p. 112):
"Persuasive and socially assured, the person moves aggressively into a central role
whenever part of a social or business group (Sociability, Social Ascendancy, Persuasive
Interests). Confident to initiate and act without external support (Self-Confidence), the
individual catches on rapidly (Mental Ability) and moves into action with energy and
flexibility (General Activity and Serious versus Carefree). With heightened personal
concern for status, power, and money (Political and Economic Values), the person will
work hard to achieve positions that yield such rewards."
It is quite apparent that personality does contribute meaningfully to the prediction of some
aspects of job success. Personality measures are usually uncorrelated with ability measures, so
11
they may add unique variance to the prediction of job perfol1nance (cf. Rosse, Miller, & Barnes,
1991). However, it is necessary to caution that most of the meta-analytic studies mentioned
above (Hough excepted) have corrected the observed validity coefficients for both predictor and
criterion unreliability. This is useful in determining construct-to-constmct relationships, but it
over-estimates the validity that would actually be achieved in using less than perfectly reliable
instruments in a selection context. We will next consider how and when personality is likely to
be most useful in selection.
How and When does Personality Predict Performance?
There seem to be two implicit theories underlying research on personality in selection: the
person-job match theory, and the "good apple" theory. The former says that the personality traits
needed for different jobs and occupations might be quite different, and that getting the match right
is critical. Stereotypically, one might recommend choosing extraverts for sales job and introverts
for book-keeping jobs. Unfortunately, the meta-analytic work is not yet able to offer extensive
guidance on trait choices for different occupations (other than service orientation for service
jobs), partly because number of studies in each job category is insufficient for conclusive
analyses. In order to apply this approach, further developments on taxonomies of personality
relevant to work and personality-oriented job analysis methods will be necessary. With these
tools, it may be possible to assess the likely personality requirements of different jobs, then select
measures which will predict performance on those jobs.
The good apple approach says that most good employees share traits of being honest and
conscientious and stable and probably agreeable, and that these traits should be selected for
regardless of the specific occupation. This view has received support from several meta-analytic
studies (Barrick and Mount, 1991, Ones et aI., 1993, Ones & Viswesvaran, 1996; Tett et a!.,
1991), and is also consistent with managerial beliefs about what traits are generally important in
employee selection (Dunn et a!., 1995). A more sophisticated version of this approach points out
that different traits predict different behaviours, and if behaviours like exerting effort, obeying
12
rules, and getting along with others ate important in a particular job, then measures of
achievement, dependability, and the like should contribute to the prediction of job success
(Hough, 1992).
How exactly do personality attributes become converted into job performance? In the
case of contextual behaviour, conscientiousness and integrity may work simply by increasing the
chances that employees will choose to attend work, obey the rules, and be helpful and pleasant.
In the case of task performance, conscientiousness and similar traits may increase time on task,
effort, persistence, and attention to detail, which may beneficially impact performance on some
jobs. There is also evidence that personality variables such as conscientiousness and
achievement motivation may affect performance via the intermediate steps of spontaneous goal
setting and goal commitment (Austin & Klein, 1996; Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993).
Finally, there is evidence that personality sometimes interacts with ability to predict performance
(Hollenbeck, Brief, Whitener, & Pauli, 1988; Wright, Kacmar, McMahan, & Deleeuw, 1995).
Both of these studies showed that when ability is low, motivation (in the form of internal locus of
control, high self esteem, or achievement need) can be problematic, as employees try very hard to
perform tasks they are incapable of carrying out correctly and thus compound their errors relative
to low ability people who are less motivated. However, when ability is high, the same
personality variables are positively related to performance.
It has long been thought that dispositional variables will predict behaviour better in
"weak" situations allowing discretion than in "strong" situations which suppress the display of
individual differences (Mischel, 1977). There is relatively little research addressing this issue in
the case of personality and job performance, but the studies that have been done tend to support
the above assertion. For instance, the meta-analysis of integrity tests by Ones et al. (1993) found
that validity was much higher in more complex jobs. They speculated that this was because more
complex jobs were less closely supervised and allowed more opportunity to engage in dishonesty
if the employee was so inclined. BarTick and Mount (1993) found that autonomy moderated the
validity of conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness, such that personality
13
characteristics were more predictive of perfonnance when autonomy was high. Oldham and
Cummings (1996) found that a personality-based measure of creativity was more predictive of
actual on-the-job creative behaviour under the facilitating conditions of high job complexity and
non-controlling supportive supervision.
Personality is also more likely to predict performance over longer time periods, and
perhaps when cognitive ability is relatively less important. This suggests that personality might
not be a strong predictor of near term perfonnance during training or immediately after hire when
learning abil ity is crucial, but may become more imp0l1ant in maintaining perfonnance after job
skills are mastered. Helmreich, Sawin, and Carsrud (1986) reported that the validity of
personality predictors increased over the first eight months of employment for airline reservation
agents. Long tenn studies of managerial success at AT&T and Sears also confirmed that
personality variables have substantial predictive power over a 10 to 20 year career (Bentz, 1985;
Bray & Howard, 1983; McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982).
In summary, personality predictors are most useful over the longer term, on jobs in
which perfonnance is not highly constrained by ability, job design, or organisational control
systems, and when predicting contextual aspects of performance.
Future Research Needs
There is still room for additional research on applied personality assessment in selection.
More work is needed on the fonn of the predictor-criterion relationship, which traits are
measured, and how they are measured.
Alternative fonns of the predictor-criterion relationship should be explored. The typical
linear validity paradigm has been criticised by Campbell (1990), and in the case of personality,
non-monotonic relationships seem quite possible. For instance, optimal perfonnance in some
cases may be associated with intennediate rather than high or low levels of traits such as
dominance. Another possible form of the relationship would be a cutoff threshold (e.g., negative
selection procedures as used by the Australian Anny Psychology Corps). Personality
18
References
Arneson, S., Millikin-Davies, M., Hogan, J. (1993) Validation of personality and cognitive
measures for insurance claims examiners. Joumal ofBusiness and Psychology 4: 459-473.
Austin, J.T. and Klein, 18. (1996) Work motivation and goal striving. In K.R, Murphy (Ed.),
Individual Differences and Behavior in Organizations. (pp. 209-257). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Barrick, M.R. and Mount, M.K. (1991) The big five personality dimensions and job
performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44: 1-26.
Barrick, M.R. and Mount, M.K. (1993) Autonomy as a moderator of the rleationship between
the Big Five personality dimensions and job performance. Journal ofApplied Psychology,
78: 111-118.
Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K., and Strauss, J.P. (1993) Conscientiousness and performance of
sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal setting. Joumal ofApplied
Psychology, 78: 715-722.
Bentz, VJ.. (1985) Research findings from personality assessment of executives. In
Bernardin, H.J. and Bownas, D.A. (Eds), Personality Assessment in Organizations (pp.
82-144). New York: Praeger.
Block, J. (1995) A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality description.
Psychological Bulletin, 117: 187-229.
Boyle, GJ. (1989) Re-examination of the major personality-type factors in the Cattell, Comrey,
and Eysenck scales: Were the factor solutions by Noller et al. optimal? Personality and
Individual Differences, 10: 1289-1299.
Boyle, G.J. (1992) Test Reviews: Hogan Personality Inventory. Psychological Test Bulletin, 5:
130-136.
Boyle, GJ., Stankov, L., and Cattell, R.B. (1995) Measurement and statistical models in the
study of personality and intelligence. In D.H. Saklofske and M. Zeidner (eds),
International handbook ofpersonality and intelligence (pp. 417-446). New York: Plenum.
19
Bray, D.W. and Howard, A. (1983) Personality and the assessment center method. Advances
in Personality Assessment, 3: 1-34.
Campbell, J.P. (1990) Modeling the performance prediction problem in industrial and
organizational psychology. In M.D. Dunnette and L.M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of
Industrial and Organizational Psychology Vol. 1 (pp. 687-732). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting
Psychologists Press.
Cattell, R.B. (1992) Human motivation objectively, experimentally analysed. British Journal of
Medical Psychology, 65: 237-243.
Cattell, R.B., Cattell, K., and Cattell, H.E.P. (1994) 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire
(16PF) Fifth Edition:. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.
Cattell, R.B. and Schuerger, J.M. (1978) Personality theory in action: Handbookfor the
Objective-Analytic (O-A) Test Kit. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability
Testing.
Collins, J.M., and Schmidt, F.L. (1993) Personality, integrity, and white collar crime: A
construct validity study. Personnel Psychology, 46: 295-311.
Cooksey, R.W. and Gates, G.R. (1995) HRM: A management science in need of discipline.
Asia Pacific Journal ofHuman Resources, 33: 15-38.
Costa, P.T. JI'. and McCrae, R.R. (1988) From catalogue to classification: Murray's needs and
the five-factor model. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 55: 258-265.
Costa, P.T. JI'. and McCrae, R.R. (1992) Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI R) and
NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment
Resources, Inc., Odessa, Florida.
Dunn, W.S., Mount, M.K., Barrick, M.R., and Ones, D.S. (1995) Relative importance of
personailty and general mental ability in managers' judgments of applicant qualifications.
Journal ofApplied Psychology, 80: 500-509.
Eysenck, H.J. (1991) Dimensions of personality: 16,5, or 3?--Criteria for a taxonomic
paradigm. Personality and Individual Differences, 12,773-790.
20
George, J.M. (1992) The role of personality in organizational life: Issues and evidence. Joumal
ofManagement, 18: 185-213.
Goldberg, L.R. (1990) An alternative "description of personality": The Big Five factor
structure. Joumal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59: 1216-1229.
Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Guion, R.M. and Gottier, R.F. (1965) Validity of personality measures in personnel selection.
Personnel Psychology, 18: 135-164.
Haladyna, T.M. (1992) Review of the Occupational Personality Questionnaire. In J.J. Kramer
and J.e. Conoley (Eds.) The Eleventh Mental Measurements Yearbook. Buros Institute of
Mental Measurements, Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Harland, L.K., Rauzl, T., and Biasotto, M.M. (1995) Perceived fairmess of personality tests
and the impact of explanation for their use. Employee Responsibity and Rights Journal, 8:
183-192.
Helmes, E. and Reddon, J.R. (1993) A perspective on developments in assessing
psychopathology: A critical review of the MMPI and MMPI-2. Psychological Bulletin, 113:
453-471.
Helmreich, R.L., Sawin, L.L., and Carsrud, A.L. (1986) The honeymoon effect in job
pelformance: Temporal increases in the predictive power of achievement motivation.
Journal ofApplied Psychology, 71: 185-188.
Hogan, R.T. (1991) Personality and personality measurement. In M.D. Dunnette and L.M.
Hough (eds), Handbook ofIndustrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol 2 (pp.873-919).
Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Hogan, J., Hogan, R., and Busch, e.M. (1984) How to measure service orientation. Journal
ofApplied Psychology 69: 167-173.
Hogan, J., Hogan, R., Gregory, S. (1992) Validation of a sales representative selection
inventory. Journal of Business and Psychology, 7: 161-171.
21
Hogan, l and Roberts, B.W. (1996) Issues and non-issues in the fidelity-bandwidth trade-off.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17: 627-637.
Hollenbeck, lR., Brief, A.P., Whitener, E.M., and Pauli, K.E. (1988) An empirical note on
the interaction of personality and aptitude in personnel selection. Journal ofManagement,
14: 441-451.
Hough, L.M. (1992) The "big five" personality variables--construct confusion: Description
versus prediction. Human Performance, 5: 139-155.
Hough, L.M., Eaton, N.K., DUfinelle, M.D., Kamp, J.D., McCloy, R.A. (1990) Criterionrelated validities of personality constructs and the effect of response distortion on those
validities. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 75: 581-595.
Hough, L.M., and Schneider, R.J. (1996) Personality traits, taxonomies, and applications in
organizations. In K.R, Murphy (Ed.), Individual Differences and Behavior in Organizations.
(pp.31-87). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hunter, J.E. (1986) Cognitive ability, cognitive aptitudes, job knowledge, and job perfOlmance.
Journal of Vocational Behavior, 29: 340-362.
Janz, T., Hellervik, L., and Gilmore, D.C. (1986) Behavior Description Interviewing. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon.
Jones, S. (1993) Psychological Testingfor Managers: A Complete Guide to Using and
Surviving 19 Popular Recruitment and Career Development Tests. London: Piatkus.
Krug, S.E. and Johns, E.F. (1986) A large scale cross-validation of second-order personality
structure defined by the 16PF. Psychological Reports, 59: 683-693.
Lawler, E.E. (1992) The Ultimate Advantage: Creating the High Involvement Organization.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
McAllister, L.W. (1986) A Practical Guide to
ePI Interpretation.
Palo Alto, CA: Consulting
Psychologists Press.
McClelland, D.C. and Boyatzis, R.E. (1982) Leadership motive pattern and long-term success
in management. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 67: 737-743.
22
McDaniel, M.A. and Frei, RL. (1994) Validity of customer service measures in personnel
selection: A meta-analysis. Unpublished manuscript, University of Akron.
McHenry, lJ., Hough, L.M., Toquam, J.L., Hanson, M.A., and Ashworth, S. (1990)
Project A validity results: The relationship between predictor and criterion domains.
Personnel Psychology, 43: 335-354.
Mershon, B. and Gorusch, R.L. (1988) Number of factors in the personality sphere: Does
increase in factors increase predictability of real-life criteria? Journal ofPersonality and
Social Psychology, 55: 675-680.
Mischel, W. (1977) The interaction of person and situation. In D. Magnusson and N.S. Endler
(eds), Personality at the Crossroads: Current Issues in Interactional Psychology (pp.333352). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Motowidlo, S.J. and Van Scotter, J.R. (1994) Evidence that task performance should be
distinguished from contextual performance. Journal ofApplied Psychology 79: 475-480.
Mount, M.K and Barrick, M.R. (1995) The big five personality dimensions: Implications for
research and practice in human resource management. Research in Personnel and Human
Resource Management, 13: 153-200.
Mount, M.K, Barrick, M.R, and Strauss, J.P. (1994) Validity of observer ratings of the Big
Five personality factors. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 79: 272-280.
Murphy, KR. (1993) Honesty in the Workplace. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Murphy, K.R and Lee, S.L. (1994) Personality variables related to integrity test scores: The
role of conscientiousness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 8: 413-424.
Nesbitt, KW. (1996) Selection of Antarctic expeditioners. In M. Smith and V. Sutherland
(Eds.) International Review of Professional Issues in Selection and Assessment, Vol. 2 (95105). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Oldham, G.R, and Cummings, A. (1996) Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors
at work. Academy ofManagement Journal, 39: 609-634.
23
Ones, D.S., Schmidt, F.L., and Viswesvaran, C. (1994, April) Do broader personality
variables predict job peifonnance with higher validity? Paper presented at the 9th annual
meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Nashville, TN.
Ones, D.S. and Viswesvaran, C. (1996) Bandwidth-fidelity dilemma in personality
measurement for personnel selection. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17: 609-626.
Ones, D.S., Viswesvaran,
c., and Schmidt, F.L.
(1993) Comprehensive meta-analysis of
integrity test validities: Findings and implications for personnel selection and theories of job
performance. Joumul ufApplied Psychology, 78: 679-703.
Rosse, J.G., Miller, H.E., and Barnes, L.K. (1991) Combining personality and cognitive
ability predictors for hiring service-oriented employees. Journal ofBusiness and
Psychology, 5: 431-445.
Rosse, J.G., Miller, J.L., and Stecher, M.D. (1994) A field study of job applicants' reactions to
personality and cognitive ability testing. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 79: 987-992.
Rosse, J.G., Ringer, R.C., and Miller, J.L. (1992) Personality and drug testing: An
exploration of the perceivedfairness of alternatives to urinalysis. Paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Academy of Managment, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ryan, A.M. and Sackett, P.R. (1989) Exploratory study of individual assessment practices:
Reliability and judgments of assessor effectiveness. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 74:
568-579.
Sackett, P.R., Burris, L.R., and Callahan, C. (1989) Integrity testing for personnel selection:
An update. Personnel Psychology, 42: 491-529.
Saville, P., Holdsworth, L., Nyfield, G. Cramp, L., & Mabey, W. (1990-1994) Occupational
Personality Questionnaire: Concept 5.2. London: Saville & Holdsworth Ltd.
Schmit, MJ. and Ryan, A.M. (1993) The big five in personnel selection: Factor structure in
applicant and nonapplicant populations. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 78: 966-974.
24
Schmit, M.J., Ryan, A.M., Stierwalt, S.L., and Powell, A.B. (1995) Frame-of-reference
effects of personality scale scores and criterion-related validity. Joumal ofApplied
Psychology, 80: 607-620.
Schneider, R.I. and Hough, L.M. (1995) Personality and industrial/organizational psychology.
In e.L. Cooper and LT. Robertson (Eds.) International Review ofIndustrial and
Organizational Psychology, 10: 75-129.
Schneider, R.I., Hough, L.M., and Dunnette, M.D. (1996) Broadsided by broad traits: How to
sink science in five dimensions or less. Joumal of Organizational Behavior, 17: 639-655.
Seisdedos, N. (1993). Personnel selection, questionnaires, and motivational distortion: An
intelligent attitude of adaptation. In H. Schuler, J.L. Farr, and M. Smith (eds.) Personnel
Selection and Assessment (pp. 91-108). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Staw, B.M. and Barsade, S.G. (1993) Affect and managerial performance: A test of the
sadder-but-wiser vs. happier-and-smarter hypothesis. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 38: 304-331.
Staw, B.M., Sutton, R.I., and Pelled, L.H. (1994) Employee positive emotion and favorable
outcomes at the workplace. Organization Science, 5: 51-71.
Tett, R.P., Jackson, D.N., and Rothstein, M. (1991) Personality measures as predictors of job
performance: A meta-analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 44: 703-742.
Wright, P.M., Kacmar, K.M., McMahan, G.e., and Deleeuw, K. (1995) P=f(M X A):
Cognitive ability as a moderator of the relationship between personality and job performance.
Joumal ofManagement, 21: 1129-1139.
Wright, J.e. and Mischel, W. (1987) A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: The
local predictability of social behaviour. Joumal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 53:
1159-1177.
25
Cynthia D. Fisher (MS. PhD Purdue) is Professor of Management at Bond University
and has also taught at Texas A&M University, the University of Baltimore, and the
National University of Singapore. Dr. Fisher is the author of numerous articles on
employee attitudes and work behavior, performance appraisal and feedback, and employee
socialization. She is the first author of Human Resource Management, a textbook now in
its third edition with Houghton-Mifflin. She has served on the editorial boards of the
Academy ofManagement Review, the Joumal ofApplied Psychology, Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Asia Pacific Joumal of Human Resources.
Gregory J. Boyle (PhD Melboune and Delaware) is Professor of Psychology at Bond
University and has also taught for several years at the University of Melbourne and the
University of Queensland. Dr. Boyle is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on
personality assessment and applied psychometric issues. He is Associate Editor of the Australian
Joumal ofPsychology, is on the editorial board of Multivariate Experimental Clinical Research,
and is a consultant reviewer for over twenty international psychology journals.
26
Table I
Typologies of Personality Traits
Big Five
Eysenck
Hogan
Hough
Extravertion/
Surgency
Extraversion
Sociability
Afftliation
Ambition
Potency
Cattell
(Krug & Johns)
Extraversion
Achievement
Adjustment
Adjustment
Anxiety (Neuroticism)
Conscientiousness
Prudence
Dependability
Control (Super ego)
Agreeableness
Likeability
Agreeableness
Tough Poise
Openness to Experience/
(Intellectance/Cul ture)
Intellectance
Intellectance
Intelligence
Rugged Individualism/
Masculinity
Independence
Emotional Stability
Neuroticism
Psychoticism
Locus of Control